When Maj. Richard Hull set out on a fishing trip while on leave last summer, he never imagined he'd help save the lives of five others.
"Looking back on it, I really didn't think about any of the danger or [getting] recognition or anything like that," said Hull, who is the aviation officer for the 2nd Infantry Division's operations staff. "It was a quick decision. It was simple. These five people needed help."
For his actions on that day, Hull received the Soldier's Medal during a ceremony Thursday at Camp Casey, South Korea.
The Soldier's Medal is awarded to service members who perform heroic acts in non-combat situations.
Hull said he was not expecting recognition.
"I was very humbled," he said about the moment he learned he would be receiving the award. "I didn't do it for the recognition, and I definitely appreciate my chain of command who signed off on it and supported it."
On Sept. 2, Hull was on leave and visiting a friend, John Perone, in Nantucket, Massachusetts.
The friends got into Perone's boat to go fishing.
As they motored down the channel that leads in and out of the main harbor, they noticed another boat coming toward them.
The two men quickly realized the other boat was moving too fast and was in danger of hitting the man-made rock jetty.
"Before we could do or say anything, we saw the boat hit the jetty and its five occupants fly out 10 to 15 feet into the water," Hull said.
Hull and Perone were about 50 meters away, so they rushed over and Perone began throwing life preservers to the people in the water, Hull said.
"My initial reaction was to jump in," Hull said. "The people in the water were screaming, some were saying they can't swim."
But Hull quickly noticed that the five passengers' now unmanned boat was still moving. The back left side of the boat had been damaged, and it was now making wild right-hand circles around the people in the water, Hull said.
"Any time the five individuals would try to get to John's boat, the other boat would come around and block them," he said.
Perone moved his boat so it was shielding the five people in the water. The other boat slammed into Perone's boat, disabling it, Hull said.
"The other boat bounced off John's boat and came around to hit us again, but I was able to jump into that boat and turn off the engine," he said.
Hull said his actions were just instinct.
"I just jumped," he said. "I didn't see any other way we could get control of the boat."
By that time, one of the five people in the water had been separated from the group, so Hull moved over to rescue him. The other four remained in the water, and Perone was unable to help them because his boat was so badly damaged.
So Hull maneuvered the boat he had commandeered and picked the rest of the group out of the water.
"At that time, I yelled for John to help us," Hull said.
Perone tried to throw a rope to Hull, but the current kept moving the two boats further apart.
"The current was strong enough it was spinning us around, and we noticed we were standing in three feet of water," Hull said.
The second boat was filling with water, and the five occupants "started panicking again," Hull said.
Thankfully, Perone had made a distress call, and as Hull looked up he saw a Coast Guard boat coming toward them.
After the Coast Guard towed both boats back to safety, only one of the five people who'd been thrown off their boat needed to go to the hospital, Hull said.
Hull said he later learned the five people he helped were tourists on vacation. They had taken the tender, an inflatable, rigid-hulled boat from their yacht, to go water-skiing and were on their way back to the yacht when they lost control, Hull said.
Hull said he and Perone didn't hesitate to help when they saw the tourists' boat hit the rocks.
"We knew we had to go help them," he said. "I'm just happy that I could help out. I don't think I'm any different than a lot of other people. I think they would have done the same thing."
Michelle Tan is the editor of Army Times and Air Force Times. She has covered the military for Military Times since 2005, and has embedded with U.S. troops in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Haiti, Gabon and the Horn of Africa.
